Five Years of MGDMT

This isn’t an especially anniversary-y comic or anything, I’ve just had it on my to-do list for LITERAL YEARS and been putting it off because I never have enough time to draw a MGDMT strip that requires 15 characters in one panel and get it up in time. That first panel alone took longer than a lot of entire strips I do.

So yeah, happy five years of strips, celebrate with this thing I put three all-nighters into.

I could see Mad Max being the kind of guy you’d invite to your pig roast party because he seemed like a cool dude but just ends up saying something weird and alienating everybody.

I feel like I reference Rob Halford a lot (twice in two years is more than most webcomics I read) but he is my Black Leather Fashion Icon. When the apocalypse happens and we all need to find the most artfully leather clad leader to follow I’ll probably look for that camp.

Oh, I almost forgot! Sorry to bother you about it, but is there any chance you’ll be doing one involving Jurassic World, or a MGS:Phantom Pain one? Or even both? I mean, there’s plenty you can make fun of in at least JW (for example, Chris Pratt’s Raptor motorcycle gang) or sheep fultoning (or more) in PP. That said, I respect whatever choices you make as you’re the comedy mastermind here. I frankly suck at being funny.

Several of the writers have said they don’t consider him to be heterosexual and write him as such. Gail Simone, Chris Hastings, and Gerry Duggan are all pretty accessible online, you can ask them yourself if you wanted.

Not buying it with Deadpool, who has a deliciously deep and complex relationship with Cable throughout their shared series, including embarrassing fantasies of Cable rubbing suntan lotion into his back?

well deadpool can’t be considered hetero sexual because he will probably try to stick in in pretty much anything, girls, hippopotamus alien and the grim reaper for example. that’s right, he litterally tried to stick his D*** into death

Oh my god, SHEPARD! I was wondering if Mass Effect would ever make appearance in your comic. Odd thing for Shepard to be slightly anti-gay, considering he can bang anything on the ship. Then again – if he is bit of renegade, it can be possible. If I can pop a question – any chance we might see more of the Normandy’s crew one day?

Bull’s punchline was great at the end, love it. And most important – congratulations on five years of the comic!

It’s the missing comma that throws it off. There should be a comma between the words “judge” and “Max” in Shepherd’s line. No comma there, and the sentence reads like Shepherd’s talking about Max, rather than to Max.

But the meaning of the line doesn’t change regardless of whether he’s saying ‘I’m not judging you, Max’ or ‘Guys, I’m not judging Max’.

I suspect the big problem is Big Boss pointing past Shep at the off-panel Max makes it look like he’s pointing to Shep when he asks ‘you haven’t?’, thus changing the implied timbre of Shep’s response, especially if one is unfamiliar with some or all of the characters present and thus doesn’t know who Max is.

The original version of this strip had Shep addressing Big Boss and saying “Not judging, just saying, that seems kind of unnatural.” RE: Max’s comment. Two people in a row took it the wrong way and assumed he was agreeing with Mad Max so I edited the line. He’s still talking to Boss because I wasn’t going to redraw the panel for two people who couldn’t reason their way through what was going on so he’s not going to be saying “I am not judging you [comma] Max” he’s addressing Boss and saying “I am not judging Max, the guy over there behind me”

Sausage Tacos. Fish tacos, fish sausage, meat sausage and meat tacos. Tacos with sausage meat and sausage meat with taco chips. With the option of salad for the non-meat/fish eaters. Cuz who wouldn’t want some taco salad or fish and chips with their bangers and mash every now and then?

The date missions have several things about them that suggest non-canonicity, mostly one of Paz’s journals saying multiple times she has no interest in Big Boss, and the overall non-serious tone of them.

Plus in MGS3, Snake seems completely oblivious to the concept of orientation other than heterosexuality. He totally missed Eva’s hints about Raikov and Volgin being a couple. Though who knows, maybe that was just Kojima playing obliviousness for laughs.

Solid Snake and Otacon however? Even the voice actors admitted to playing most of their scenes like love scenes.

Oh, I’m not complaining about it being in the comic pardon if it came across like that. If anything I should correct myself, after reading up on Peace Walker, which is one of the MGS games I’ve missed out on, there’s a bunch of overtones between the two of them. Mostly of Kojima being ambiguous of how the two character’s feel about each other. And then there’s this, http://youtu.be/qscKqM8YS9Y

Congrats on five years on the comic by the way. I started reading shortly after you started and it totally doesn’t seem like it’s been five years yet. Best of luck with it in the coming years.

I have to say I’m curious if there was a conscious choice to put in Big Boss instead of Snake. Normally I would write off stuff like that as me being an MGS nitpicker, but Coela specifically noting that it’s Big Boss and this strip usually paying attention to that kind of thing makes me inclined to pipe up. As far as I’m aware, we’ve been given no canonical reason to question BB’s heterosexuality, whereas there’s some pretty heavy evidence that Solid Snake is at least bi.

I mean I guess you could point at Big Boss and Miller, but that’s definitely more “bromance” and less “we-adopted-a-kid-together” than Snake and Otacon.

I would argue that initially he didn’t care to sex at all(Snake Eater), then you could argue that he didn’t care who sexed(PW) to the point where all he cares about is revenge and being a soldier and never being betrayed again(Phantom Pain onwards). I’d call the latter part “Ammosexual”.

This seems kind of weird… Why would EVERYBODY go for a homosexual experience at some point? Or do they just mean accepting a date with a gay guy to see if they feel anything? I am distinctly pro-gay for… reasons; but this comic still seems very surreal. Is it just stretching things for a joke, or is it just that the characters in the middle rows are kind of weird and have the skewed sense of typical?

I think half of it is stretching for the joke, but a lot of these characters are from more open times. Both future and past. It’s natural to at least explore sexuality. No one was really even saying it’s unnatural NOT to do that. They’re just saying it’s weird that he FLIPPED OUT SO HARD from those little comments.

Studies’ve shown about 97% of the population to be hetero, so yeah. Looks like the Commander invited mostly bi folk to this luau for whatever reason and assumed Max would fit in on account of the outfit. Max probably thinks he got pulled into some crazy Dionysian orgy, but I bet all he’s running away from is delicious beer and pork, maybe some poi too.

I don’t think he stacked the deck for bi people intentionally, it just kinda worked out that way. And the reason Max was invited was because he seemed cool, and this lurked beneath the surface and no one had a clue.

Sometimes it seems like my social circles are a little more stacked in favour of bi people than pure statistics would indicate. Wonder what that says about the theatre crowd…

But yeah, aside from running from people who challenge his beliefs, he’s also running from delicious beer and pork, and if it weren’t for the aforementioned “I don’t like to be challenged on this core belief” I’d be inclined to ask what’s wrong with him.

It’s the same sort of person who doesn’t like to be confronted with “politics in games” and then throws a fuss over it. Odds are, it’s because they ran into a perspective they disagree with and that makes them profoundly uncomfortable. Meanwhile, people like you and me ask “what the fuck was that about?”.

I didn’t like it at first either – then I had some made by someone who knew what they were doing. And it is fantastic; makes me wish taro was easier to come by on the mainland.
And if you just don’t like it, well, more for the rest of us.

In this case, probably a study financed by conservatists…
I’ve seen several studies about that topic, and the results are only reliable in one aspect. They support the views of these who paid for them.
Even the interpretation of the word “Heterosexual” isn’t the same for all of these studies.

No, no, I think you’re mistaking the point. Not everyone there is bi, but some of them are. Constantine says it’s okay if you’re not like that and that’s fine too. The problem is Mad Max making a big deal out of it.

I think it’s more to do with the fact that video games (which at least a large portion of these characters are from) are more and more regularly including a homosexual option with romantic subplots. It’s really (and it’s great to see it: I feel more represented every time it pops up) becoming more common to see it in all areas of pop culture, especially the nerdy ones. As time goes on, the statistics around Commander Badass are going to slowly shift further and further up the Kinsey scale.

And of course, Commander Badass was designed to appeal to the most people possible, and I would imagine that in the chrome spacefuture, that means designing him bisexual, because almost no one will object, and a large portion of the population will go “Oooh, hawt!”

I think its mostly a joke. Just about every one of those characters at that BBQ is either Bi, experimented with the same sex, or is very open minded about experimnetation. Experimenting with the same gender is NOT that common; i think the rate is like 5-10%. However when most of the people you know HAVE experimented, then that’s gonna leave you with the impression that it IS that common place; hence the joke.

Not really. 15 slightly inebriated friends, all of whom are bisexual, and all of whom are very relaxed, apparently, about the topic of sex. For a few of them to hook up wouldn’t be shocking, and again, it’s not like they are strangers.

Some of them are atleast, I know Catman and Constantine are canonically bi, so is Hercules, they’ve hinted at it with Wonder Woman, Deadpool jut kinda goes for anything with a pulse, and Hawk and Shepard depends on the players choices. No idea about Snake or the others.

I’m actually taken aback with Constantine since that never came up in the Garth Ennis/Hellblazer days. A quick trip to the DC wiki shows that this was revealed in the Poo-52 earth so I guess that kinda explains why that came in under the radar.

More specifically deadpool goes for anything with “Boobies!” Though he is completely comfortable with using gay humor and hanging out with gay/bi dudes, he’s always been into the ladies, as evidenced by death (his greatest love) always taking on the form of a woman… And of course being romantically involved with most of the female cast of the x-men at one time or another. Deadpool has been bi-curious once or twice in the comics, but I wouldn’t say it’s enough to call him bi.

As a straight man who enjoys cosplay and not wearing shirts, I have been approached with the whole ‘how do you know until you try it’ thing at every con I’ve attended in the past 3 years. And I know 10/12 of my queer lady friends have been harrassed online with that whole ‘until you try it’ thing by random creepers.

Congratulations on the five years of awesome strips Coela [imagine a big ass piñata crashing through your nearest window right now] This one is a specially sight widening one and a great way to mark the date

Years ago at camp some asshat started teasing a kid with a lisp. I looked at the bully and said, “hey! Not everyone who talks like that is gay. I don’t, do I?” Now, I am not gay, but I didn’t say with that phrasing that I was.. just that I don’t talk like that; but the bully FREAKED OUT (I was second biggest kid in camp, he wasn’t about to take me on) and from then on bunches of us would make passes at him or get jiggy behind a carefully lowered sleeping bag.. he was so damned twitchy he slept with his axe at his side.

I’ve been reading this comic for some time, but I have never commented before. Congrats on five years!!!! But I have a question:
Would someone be willing to list who all is in the first panel?? I play a lot of video games, but I’m not recognizing everyone. Or maybe the massive migraine I’m currently growing is throwing me off.

Yay! Thank you! By the way, I want to let you know that I really, really admire you. I tried going to animation school, and a series of events, including an inability to cough up all the school money, prevented me from completing it. Your work is amazing and it’s so good to see another girl that is into non-girly stuff.

the only ones i didn’t recognize were Scott Dolph (though he was Sergeant Johnson from Halo honestly.), Catman (i thought he was in Elf……..seriously.), Hawke (to be fair, i couldn’t see her face.), i assumed Max was Mad Max but still wasn’t certain.

funnily enough i recognized Constantine despite only watching that show.

Hmmm. So that’s about half canonically bi, a couple more Word-of-God-ly bi, a few stroooongly implied, Shepard and their quantum sexuality, and Deadpool, who’s basically “whatever-weirds-you-out-sexual.”

I think Deadpool would have made a nice quip about that. He’s balls-out insane enough to pick right up on that conversation and start talking about cross-dressing or something else reaaaally left-field.

The gods were pretty much omnisexual. If it existed, they boinked it. Often in forms that shouldn’t be able to crossbreed with it. One bizarre instance was Zeus turning into a shower of gold (still unsure if it was meant gold light, golden liquid, or gold coins) and somehow impregnating a woman. Most of Zeus’s inhuman “playtime” forms were to avoid Hera’s gaze but… never really worked.

I just wanted to say that all the extra effort put into this doesn’t go unnoticed; the comic looks awesome! :D I’m not sure if this makes it worth it or not, but I’d love to see more of that barbecue.

PS: I was disappointed when I read the comments and found out that was Hercules and not Guan Yu in panel 5; if you want some manly as fuck characters (and one of the most addicting hack-and-slash series), you should checking out the Dynasty Warriors series (if you haven’t already). Lu Bu, Cao Cao, Guan Yu, Zheng Fei and Xiahou Dun would all fit right in in your comic, and those are just off the top of my head after not having played any of those games for a couple years. :D

Hi, long time reader here. Congrats on your five years of awesome, Coelasquid! I was wondering if it’s at all possible for you to release a larger version of the first panel? Doesn’t have to be like high res version or anything, but I would love to see some of the detail that went into this 3 day all-nighter. <3

Pretty sure Moxxi’s Sexuality is ‘yes’. Not that she doesn’t have limits. I’m with Bull you’d think someone from a post-apocalyptic future would be less…prudish. Also I love how chill Bull is in the games and your comics. The only thing I could see him getting pissed about is if someone started insulting Krem.

When has Deadpool picked up a guy though? I’ve missed a looooot of his comics lately so I’m behind. I do know he’s technically married now. (To a Demon Queen. :D )

They had a pretty heavy bromance going on at one time, and when Deadpool and Bob were seeing alternate universes where their goals had been achieved during Deadpool vs. the Marvel Universe, one alternate timeline showed him on be beach oiling up Cable. With WD40. They definitely had that “platonic life partners” thing going on.

Also, Deadpool has on a number of occasions mentioned guys he’s hook up with.

I have a question. You’re clearly showing a male Shepard here, which makes sense giving the title of your comic, but would you ever portray a female Shepard? I’ve seen you do a few funny strips featuring female characters.

I may be wrong, but she seems to prefer sticking to a single version of any Bioware characters – male elf Warden-Commander, Female Hawke (present), Inquisitor Stan the qunari, and now Shepherd. The same likely applies to other games, considering the burly Arisen she made for the comic.
Granted, not all art need be the comic.
…that reads as mildly pretentious. Not my intent; time to sleep for now.

I don’t know… This feels less like a set-up for a joke than it does like setting up a strawman argument.
And I know that you try to clear things with the line “no one is saying there is something wrong with you,” but the whole page gives an overtone of saying that it is expected for people to be bisexual, with an implication that it is abnormal for a male to never have sex with another male.
That’s not really falling in line with an idea of “being respectful of all sexuality.” “Not saying there is nothing wrong with it” isn’t quite the same thing as “being okay with it,” particularly when you imply that the “it” in question is unnatural.

No, I thought about that, but it really doesn’t work as a “counter-think” display when you have the one odd-man-out making a big hooplah and leaving in a disgusted rage.
See, THAT’s the part that sets this all up as a strawman. Would you be seeing that if the situation was reversed? Would you be depicting the more sexually-open character as being an irritable asshole who is judging everyone? I really doubt that you would; I really doubt that you would do anything other than make the non-sexually-open characters look like assholes making snap judgements with no consideration for how personal sexuality is.
But when you switched the roles around, you kept the problems on the same groups. There is no effort here to make the sexually-open people look like assholes for casting snap judgement on the guy who is different; no, you make the guy who is different into an asshole who can’t tolerate other people’s sexuality.

In other words, you’re not saying that judging people for their sexuality is bad, but -at best- you are showing a double-standard to say that it is only bad to judge certain groups for their sexuality.

But really, this honestly feels more like you are trying to say it is wrong for a person to not be sexually-open. You have spent so many years building the Commander into such a respectable and wise character; a paragon of reason and rationality. But where are his efforts to diffuse the situation and stand for the morality that says sexuality is individual? The voice of morality in this comic remains silent, implying a consent to the statements already made.

Thank you for putting my thoughts into much better words than I would have. Something kept bothering me about this comic, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. After reading your comment though, you seemingly took the words right out of my mouth. I know, I know… jokes and all that. But the slightly judging overtone (“It’s unnatural to be heterosexual”) is very “off” and feels forced to get a couter-point across.

It’s more that the person in the typically privileged position who isn’t used to being in the minority has a much shorter fuse for putting up with it than people who experience that sort of thing in their daily life with alarming frequency and basically need to tolerate it to survive.

Yes, this also comes across. But on the whole the panels and especially the commander’s snarky reply seem “off” if compared with his previous (and hell, even his future) behaviour. I would have expected a more level-headed approach from him – not from the others.

Maybe it’s also personal bias on my side though. I’ve been in these situations as the (lone) heterosexual person, with friends and good acquaintances. And it is *very* confusing and hurtful when someone who’s told you about his everyday grief of being judged by others and whom you have supported through and through suddenly joins in on “Heterosexuals are unnatural” jokes while looking you straight in the eye and saying: “Come on it’s just a joke!”

I get it that this is what people of non-heterosexual orientations have to go through on a daily basis. But bouncing the same thing off the wall to blow off steam while a known heterosexual friend of yours is sitting close-by is just… bad, and it hurts. And just because the other person has to go through that on a daily basis from strangers does not mean that it’s OK to do this vice-versa to one of your friends. Ahhh… this comic just strikingly reminded me of those situations. Resurfaced some bad memories along the way. I redact my previous statement though: aside from the commander being a bit too snarky here for my taste, the comic’s fine and I get what you were trying to show here.

This whole sexuality argument is a little over my head, so I’m taking things at face value like a good little simpleton. And at face value, I can see the Commander, Jonesy, Hawke, Commander Shepard, Wonder Woman, Poison Ivy, Deadpool, Moxxi, and Iron Bull having a great big barbecue.

I love this comic. Happy five years! Hard to believe I was just a kid fresh out of high school when I discovered your comic; my how the times have flown! Now! To archive binge!

Oh snap! Just realised that military-commander guy is Colonel Jackson from MGS2, Fortune’s Dad. That’s really scraping the barrel for bi-dudes there (especially when Vamp could have been there) still good for him.

Five years, huh? Awesome – I almost missed that because I was blinded by how totally awesome the comic was this time. Great reading your comics; congratulations on five years and I hope it goes a lot more than five more. (And yeah, this was just a wonderful comic today.)

R Halford For The Win! Thanks for throwing Max in here too, love ‘ow you draw him.
I wanna’ give you five thumbs up!! (one for each year o’ MGDMT)
But I only have two… how ’bout 2 thumbs up, a cheesy grin, a wink and a foot shuffle?

I’m surprised President Underwood isn’t there. Its a gathering of bi people and there’s a pig roasting, and he would not be above crashing in uninvited.

“The Commander knows that my prescence is unwanted, but he also knows he dare not ask me to leave. One Commander may talk back to another, but this one is the Chief. All the people are captivated by me, staring at what I do. This right here, is power. Power that cannot be ignored but cannot be stopped.”

X3 comics like this make me feel much better about eyeing both sides of the buffet line; still awkward with my Mom when it comes to this but she’s getting better about it (helps there’s Demi in there, I don’t jump on everything, just those who are willing to stick out a long dating courtship, so score’s 1/1 right now ^^d)

Asura would be a pretty awesome barbecuer… I mean six arms, ability to shoot fire from each hand, fiery anger…
And an incredibly swell dude as long as you don’t piss him off.
No, seriously, even during a berserker rage that wiped out an entire fleet of spaceships he was careful to not hurt innocents, be humans or gods, and he is willing to chill and drink with you if you -ask-.

Hey, wait a second, since when has Poison Ivy been Bi? She has seduced and used men to further her own goals, but that doesn’t mean she has sexual attraction to men – the only person I ever recall her having a physical attraction to is Harley Quinn.

Congrats on the five years of awesome comics of people secure in their selves and other people trying to overcome such a clash of self/expectations. Kind of weird to see the group giving this kind of talk to someone, but it’s an amusing change of pace from the typical version of this conversation you see in fiction/reality.

Hahahaha!
Been following MGDMT for ages and always loved the way it played with the cliched idea of “macho” and this strip is in some way a brilliant little micro-cosm for the strip as a whole.
Killer timing too (fortuitously!) that Mad Max is here and the new movie is looming large and in-charge on the horizon.
Keep up the spectacular work good sir!
Cheers!

If you think about it it really makes sense for Max to be kinda leery of homosexuals. Look at his experiences with them- Lord Humungus and co. He’s never had anything but godawful negative experiences with them, at least that he’s aware of. I’d prolly be wary of TEH GAY too if most of my experiences involved a pack of murders, rape-happy thugs.

It may not be an “excuse” but it is at least a bread crumb trail of logic we can follow and understand.